BISWANATH ROY Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In all these writ applications filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the legality of the actions on the part of the respondents in treating the petitioners unequally with another similarly circumstanced person in the matter of following different modes of calculation for payment of damage compensations for the lands belonging to them are under challenge.

(2.) The petitioners in all these writ applications are the owners of plots of land lying and situated in different mouzas of the same areas in the District of Hooghly. Notices were sewed upon all of them in the months of January 1973, by the Land Acquisition Collector-cum-District Magistrate, Hooghly in exercise of powers conferred by sub-section (1A) of Section 3 of the West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1948 initiating requisition cases in respect of the plots of land belonging the petitioners for construction of Mundeswari Left Embankment 13 miles. Possessions in respect of all the plots of land were taken by the respondents in the months of January and February, 1973. Subsequently notices were issued either on predecessors of the petitioners or on the petitioners for payment of 80 per cent of compensation in respect of aforesaid plots of land. But nothing was paid to them.

(3.) In the year 2001 some of the petitioners filed applications under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for direction upon the respondents for payment of compensation to them. Thereafter, the respondents took decision with regard to the aforesaid plots of land belonging to petitioners and informed all of them in or about April, 2.002 as per communications of the Land Acquisition Collector, Hooghly that the respondents decided to release those plots of lands to the petitioners treating the date of release as on March 31,1997. Since the respondents were in possession of the aforesaid plots of land for a long period without paying any money to them, some of the petitioners filed writ applications for payment of adequate damage compensation to them. Ultimately, damage compensations were paid to all petitioners.